How Cosmopolitan Magazine changed my life.

I was reading one of my old Discovery Channel Magazines the other day and there was this story about how this one scientist saw an orangutan in a cage being sold at this market in Borneo. When no one bought the orangutan, the scientist saw the vendor just throw the animal in a pile of garbage looking to be dying of dehydration. The scientist took pity, got the orangutan, and nursed him back to health. After that, he put up a rehabilitation center for the endangered orangutan.

Of course there are other stories more inspiring ---- stories where people’s (and not orangutans’ though we apparently share 97% DNA with the intelligent species) lives are saved. Stories that inspire us to move.  Stories that are, in their very nature, moving.

Sometimes I think about my life and how nice it would be to do something awesome like that. Something huge. Something life-changing. Something worth sainthood. (Ok maybe not the last one.)

When I was young (and maybe even a tad shallow), I once dreamed of gracing the lovely and ultra-feminine cover of (get this): COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE.

*buries face in hands*

Not only that, I even thought of my own cover blurb to go with my glamorous cover (oh god here we go): Michelle Callanta ---- Woman of Substance (Just above an article entitled How to find HIS G-spot or Why good girls like bad boys?)

Right????!!!!

Of course I’d need to have done something AWESOME that merited a cover. Only… I didn’t know what that was though. Maybe if I became an environmentalist or something. Or one of those war correspondents.

Something. But that wasn’t important. I just wanted to be on the cover for something i-don’t-quite-know-what-but-it-sure-as-Hell-must-be-awesome.

I even remember the cover that won me over ---- it was 1998, Heidi Klum wearing this pink dress from I forget who. (My Googling skills are not all that great). Regardless of the designer, I wanted to OWN that dress.

                                           Oh look! ORGASMS GUARANTEED!

After that, Cosmo was like… winning the Pulitzer for a girl like me back in the day (though strangely, I’m not quite sure what kind of girl I was to want something like that. Maybe I thought I, too was a FUN FEARLESS FEMALE. If I wasn’t then, I surely worked my way to become one... though I probably didn't go about it the right way to become "fun" and "fearless", but that's not the point. =)

So I got to college and I told a girlfriend about my unforgivably (though amusingly) superficial hopes of becoming the next Cosmo covergirl. She replied, “Why be on the cover of Cosmo when you can be on the cover of Time?”

Before she said that, Cosmo was as ambitious as it got for me.

Now now don’t get me wrong:

Cosmo is awesome.

Cosmo taught me a lot of things growing up. (What. Up. Bedside Astrologer.)

Cosmo has a special place in my heart.

Cosmo was the reason I wanted to work for a magazine.

(If I couldn’t be on the cover, at least I could have my work inside its pages.)

I mean… I’m not exactly fashion-forward. Heck, I don’t really like fashion all that much unless it’s something I like for myself. I wasn’t all that into looking glamorous all the time either (and I’m sure this isn’t what Cosmo preaches that you have to be both fashion-forward and glam but that’s how I saw it as a young-un).

I did think I would be a pretty good sex/relationship writer. (Thanks to my wanting to become fun and fearless, but again, that's not the point. =)

But I needed a job right away. And there wasn’t an opening at Cosmo.

But there was one at Gadgets. (At that point, I thought I’d settled to just working for any ol’ magazine so long as it was… a magazine.)

Then I got pregnant.

And maybe I didn’t know it at the time… but I guess God thought of showering me with these serendipitous blessings all in one go because I’d been miseducated all along.

And so I became a single working mom at 23.

Still fun. Still fearless. Just no longer as driven (by the delusion of grandeur, mostly) to want to become an environmentalist. Or a war correspondent. Or even a saint.

I had a much higher calling.

Ok… no.

Not higher.

More like…

Louder.

Though I guess you could say it’s higher in a sense… as my daughter’s voice can get pretty high when she’s excited about something.

And I suppose it’s higher too in a sense… as I’m uplifted when I look at my partner and see the same ring on his finger as mine.

Higher… as I soar when I can help the people I love by simply existing, sober or drunk.

So no, I don’t think I’ll be stirring any movements anytime soon. Nor do I think I’ll be dedicating my life to sainthood.

But I sure as Hell will be taking care of my own… with the humble hope that I raise a wonderful child, inspire an amazing man, and stir the hearts of those dear to me so that they can do the same for others…

So that THOSE others can go off to become scientists who put up rehabilitation centers for orangutans.

                           How come orangutans don't get as much hype as pandas?